papers/hanzo-base-runtime/sections/12a-prior-work-pocketbase.tex

\section{Prior Work: PocketBase Extension (2022)}
\label{sec:prior-pocketbase}

The 2026 Hanzo Base runtime succeeds the 2022 \emph{Base} backend, which extended the PocketBase single-binary server with a JavaScript plugin system, embedded authentication hooks, and SQLite-backed real-time collections. That earlier system demonstrated that a single-binary backend with a hooks API could replace a typical microservices stack for teams of up to a few dozen engineers.

The 2022 architecture had three core design ideas that carry forward:
\begin{enumerate}
    \item \textbf{Embedded data + runtime}: database and HTTP server in the same process, eliminating a network hop for the common case.
    \item \textbf{JavaScript plugins via Goja}: server-side customization without a separate language runtime or redeploy cycle.
    \item \textbf{Content-addressable file store}: uploads indexed by SHA-256, with automatic deduplication.
\end{enumerate}

The 2026 runtime departs from the 2022 design in three ways: (1) native CRDT collections via Automerge, replacing the eventual-consistency patterns of the 2022 server; (2) SQLCipher-backed storage with KMS-managed keys, instead of plain SQLite; and (3) Lux Network integration for multi-node sync, replacing the per-instance model of the 2022 deployment. The plugin system and content-addressable file store remain compatible.